6,200,000 Jews Murdered by Germans in Poland Since Outbreak of War, Sommerstein Reports

January 17, 1945

Lublin (Jan. 16)

Only 15,000 Jews survive in liberated Poland, Dr. Emil Sommerstein, chairman of the Jewish Relief Committee here, said today, in a Yiddish broadcast on the Lublin radio beamed to Britain, the United States and Palestine.

Dr. Sommerstein said that 6,200,000 Jews have died in Poland since the outbreak of the war. Of them 3,000,000 were foreign Jews brought to German death camps from all parts of Europe and the others were Polish Jews. “Not all of them died from physical and mental torture,” the Jewish leader said. “Many fell fighting in the ghetto at Warsaw and elsewhere, and others dies fighting with the partisans.

Those who survived, he continued, either took to the woods, where they joined guerrilla bands, hid in cellars and other ruins, or were saved by Polish friends. All of them have lost everything. Our past, the only sure foundation of our present, is irretrievably gone,” Dr. Sommerstein declared. “Nevertheless, we have faith in the indestructible Jewish nation.”